Natasha Lomas
Senior Reporter
The Latest from Natasha Lomas
Uh oh! European carriers are trying to get into ‘personalized’ ad targeting
As Google works on reconfiguring its adtech stack to move away from cookie-based ad targeting to something else that’s not yet fixed but which it claims will be better for individual web users&#
Italy’s data watchdog latest to warn over use of Google Analytics
Another strike against use of Google Analytics in Europe: The Italian data protection authority has found a local web publisher’s use of the popular analytics tool to be non-compliant with EU da
After EU child safety complaints, TikTok tweaks ad disclosures but profiling concerns remain
A long-running EU engagement with TikTok — initiated following a series of complaints over child safety and consumer protection complaints filed back in February 2021 — has ended, for now,
This Ukrainian deep tech startup has trained an AI to paint war art
A Ukrainian deep tech startup is launching a charity NFT project to sell AI-generated artworks with the twin goal of raising money to support people affected by Russia’s war of aggression and al
Google drops appeal against €500M antitrust news licensing fine
Google has quietly dropped its appeal in France against an antitrust fine of half a billion euros levied against it last summer for major breaches in how it negotiated to remunerate local news publish
Google Maps restrictions trigger competition scrutiny in Germany
Germany’s competition regulator is looking into possible abuses related to how Google operates its Maps product. It’s the latest proceeding the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has opened again
Omio raises $80M as travel demand rebounds after years of COVID-19 crisis
It’s been a tough few years for Omio, the Berlin-based travel search and booking platform that saw 98% of its revenues evaporate overnight when COVID-19 hit Europe back in spring 2020. But the c
Samara is building tech to switch Spain’s households onto solar energy
Despite being one of the countries in Europe with the most hours of sunshine, Spain has extremely low levels of household solar installations. Madrid-based Samara, a startup founded in May this year &
Yandex shifts focus to ya.ru as it heads for media exit in Russia
TechCrunch has learned that Russia search giant Yandex is to switch from using yandex.ru as its main front page for Russian-speaking users to ya.ru — a less trafficked domain it’s owned si
UK grants extradition to US of Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange
U.K. home secretary, Priti Patel, has approved a request by the U.S. to extradite Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange. The U.S. wants to put Assange on trial for conspiracy to hack and computer misuse.
UK wants to replace cookie pop-ups with browser-based opt-outs
The U.K. government has published its final response to a data ‘reform’ consultation it kicked off last year, laying out how it intends to diverge from EU-based data protection rules. At f
EU unveils tougher industry Code to combat disinformation
The European Commission has just taken the wraps off a beefed up industry Code of Practice for tackling online disinformation across the EU. Signatories to the Code — who include tech giants lik
This startup wants to help teams get more out of virtual meetings
If the pandemic-triggered proliferation of online meetings is killing your team productivity and sapping the attention of overloaded info workers, German startup tl;dv might have just the tool: ItR
UK market abuse suit seeks up to $935M from Apple for ‘secretly throttling’ iPhones
A class action style lawsuit is being launched against Apple in the UK seeking damages worth a total of £768 million (circa $935M). The representative action is being filed by consumer rights campaig
Qualcomm wins appeal against $1BN+ EU antitrust fine
The European Union is considering how to respond to a major blow to its antitrust enforcement after a court in Luxembourg sided with chipmaker Qualcomm — which had been appealing a €997 millio
Nothing teases phone (1) design ahead of next month’s launch
It’s hard to get a thrill from glimpses of unreleased smartphone hardware these days, given the baked-in maturity of the mobile market and the general form and function sameness of the sticky re
Germany’s antitrust watchdog latest to probe Apple’s app privacy framework
A major privacy feature Apple launched last year, called App Tracking Transparency (ATT) — which requires third-party apps to request permission from iOS users to track their digital activity for ad
Glint Solar’s SaaS is helping developers spin up a pipeline of renewable energy projects
Norwegian startup, Glint Solar, has built a SaaS platform to help developers identify strong contenders for ground-based (or floating) solar projects with the goal of supporting a fast-growing industr
Apple’s payment options offer for Dutch dating apps is compliant, says ACM
The Netherlands’ competition regulator is finally happy with concessions by Apple to allow dating apps in the market to use alternative payment technologies. On Saturday the Authority for Consum
Telegram confirms it’ll launch a premium sub this month
Free messaging app Telegram is getting into the subscription game. Founder Pavel Durov confirmed today a paid offering is coming later this month which will go above and beyond the current free experi